he left hand, the fingers of
which touched her throat; and she looked, with laughing, light blue
eyes, over her left shoulder. Her hair, parted slightly on one side,
clustered in ringlets above a full, fair forehead; while a melancholy
expression about her small, compressed mouth seemed to counteract the
joyousness of the upper part of her countenance. The resemblance to the
old man was striking.

"Sixty years ago, sir, I first saw that face, and it is as fresh in my
memory as if I had only seen it yesterday. It was a face once to look
on, to dream of for ever."

"It is very beautiful," I said, still gazing on the picture. "Was she
your daughter?"

"Oh! no, sir, no. Would to God she had been!" the old man mournfully
replied. "When, sir, I first saw that fair young creature, I was
eighteen years of age, and she might have been seventeen. Endeavouring
in vain to suppress the emotions which her beauty and amiable temper
caused in my heart, I ventured one day to tell the father of Thora
Rensel, for that was her name, the love I bore his daughter. Eric Rensel
listened; and, when I had told my tale in words as fervent as my
feelings, he replied, 'Engelbert Carlson, my daughter's hand is
uncontrolled as her heart; win the girl's affections, and I will not
stand in the way of your union.' I thanked Rensel with a grateful heart,
and went forth to seek Thora.

"Do you see yonder hill?" said my narrator, pointing in the direction of
a hill skirting some corn-fields before us; "there, close to that clump
of elm-trees, stood Eric Rensel's cottage. Descending that hill, I met
Thora, returning homewards, laden with a little basket full of fruit and
flowers. She smiled when she observed me, and held out her hand, as she
always did, in token of friendship. I hastened towards her, and, seizing
the offered hand, pressed it warmly, and would have raised it to my
lips, but I had not the courage.

"'Are you not well, Engelbert?'" she said, in a gentle tone, "'for your
hand trembles;'" and she took hold of my hand with both of hers, and
looked round inquiringly into my averted face.

"'Yes, Thora,'" I replied; "'I am ill at heart, and I can find relief
nowhere else but when I am near to you. I have endeavoured for the many
months since I have known you, to hide my grief, or forget my pain; but
the more I have exerted myself to do so, the keener felt my sorrow, and
deeper still I probed the wound.'

"'Alas! and why should grief, or pa